XXIX Olympiad. Finally here in Beijing.

The opening ceremony, to be honest, is better than I expected. A lot. Typically, I don’t think Yimou Zhang can do anything other than hiring thousands of people and fill the whole screen with a single color. And the first minutes of the ceremony confirmed that. Though not so unfavorable, but please some new points…not spetacular but new…however, the latter part of last night proved I was wrong. The drawing scroll through the whole ceremony is one of the best ideas I’ve ever seen. Really, the scroll has some Chinese spirit, and painted by dancers, children and atheletes, the scroll showed more of acceptance and beauty. Plus the smiling sun (or moon) painted by children is interesting =)

Athlete incoming ceremony is as always long and laconic. Only new point is the sequence of entrance. Sorted by the strokes of first word in Chinese, hehe… therefore creating a whole new sequence different from any ceremony that sort teams in alphabetical order…

Finally, the fire. Though that Ning Li will light the main torch has been said for days, the official confirmation comes just hours before it’s done. And he did a surprising job well. Orbiting around “the nest”, or National Stadium of China, reviewing all the highs and lows the fire had come through, and finally lit up the main torch. That’s hard, that’s exausting, but that’s surprising and, well, more surprising.

Rank the ceremony? Out of 100, I’ll give a 95. But, thanks to some poor mistakes by broadcaster, a -10 has to be applied and make it 85 for me. Seriously, a 85 is still high, at least high enough in my mind.